Pierre remarked that he felt like he had been driving for days on end and had just found his guitar again. He opened his first set without comments and dug into several songs from his vast repertoire that trace his interest in Celtic, French, and Middle Eastern music. Often using either wordless vocals or even the occasional whistle, Mr. Bensusan’s music always told a story.

Pierre concluded the concert by making a rare move from his seated perch and launched into a improvisational motif of Middle Eastern based patterns that reminded me of the great Oud player Dhafer Youseff (click link to watch video).

Mr. Bensusan is in the middle of a 40 city tour of the US and next heads to western states.